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[popsofctown]

http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201207/05/game-20120705-192805-dbe373bd.html - the board sparking the question
People talk about Goons/KC/Masquerade all the time, but I have never been on either end of that particular combo.  But are there other enablers for the strategy of trashing a large portion of your opponents deck?

In this game, I didn't notice the pin until I was way behind and looking for last ditch options.  I decided to try Minion->kc masquerade.  I do a sloppy job of it.  He gets knocked to a 4 card hand, and then must choose to trash 3 of them.  It's not a hard pin - and minion is a decent answer perhaps?  But it's hard enough. 
Can you use the pin strategy to ruin a deck  without any discard attacks at all?  Choosing 3 cards to trash out of a five card hand is pretty brutal I would think.

Is there a counter strategy I don't know of?  Because my opinion of kc-masquerade has gone up a lot as of today, and I have this impression that three fourths of boards with it will have a way to win with soft pinning. 

[jonts26]

The biggest problem with the soft 'pins' were you don't trash 5 cards per hand, is that countering the pin only takes a single play of masquerade. Assuming there is a masq somewhere in you opponents deck, it's going to get played and then you are in a bad spot. Certainly it works as a last ditch effort, but I would not advise it except for that.

[popsofctown]

I don't understand.  How does a single masquerade ruin you?

[jonts26]

I play a masq and what do you pass me? Pass me a masq and you can't trash my deck. Pass a KC and you only trash 1 card, pass a minion and you only trash 3 leaving me with a 3 card hand and no income for you. Then I play another masq and what do you pass then?

EDIT: Depending on when I get my masq play and other luck, you can still make a mess of my deck. But I will get out of the pin and your deck will also be a mess. So as I said it works only as a desperation move, but I wouldn't try it when I'm ahead.

[Captain_Frisk]

Ways to pin:

The standard: Discard Attack + KC + Masquerade

Interesting: minion, throne, throne, outpost, masquerade

Truly unblockable (i think)

KC, KC, Outpost, Masq (kill 3 cards twice)

[jonts26]

Truly unblockable (i think)

KC, KC, Outpost, Masq (kill 3 cards twice)

Except for durations.

[jomini]

Additional ways to pin:

I. The key to the pin is playing multiple dead masqs (ones where you have no cards in deck to pass)

Golem - you can play 2 dead masqs if you discard two masqs or return two masqs to the deck. With a KC you can burn up to 4 cards this way.
E.g.:
Oasis (discard masq) -> Oasis (discard KC) -> Golem (masq, KC ->  masq)

You can get clever and bury things on the NV mat and use NV to get additional dead masqs in play with golem. Obviously this requires a lot of cards and needs something phenomenal in the way of deck reliability (e.g. haven x2/SP x2, scheme, etc.).
E.g.:
Village -> Embassy (discard masq, KC, cantrip) -> KC -> NV (place discard on mat) -> secret chamber (discard KC, NV) -> golem (KC -> masq, NV) -> cantrip -> KC -> masq


Outpost, for either a deck that has 4 cards (including outpost) or for an engine that is very reliable can allow you to double the plays of dead masqs (whatever that is).

E.g.:
village -> outpost -> KC -> masq
village -> KC -> masq

Both TR and KC can be used to play multiple dead masqs; however each is hard capped at 2 or 3 dead masqs respectively unless golem or NV is used to enable further dead plays.

When you combine everything, you can actually build a theoretically workable, unblockable (excepting durations) 4 player pin. You will never build that pin in anything approaching a real game [setup -> Golem (KC -> masq, NV) -> setup -> Golem (KC -> masq, NV) -> outpost -> KC -> masq; repeat during outpost turn]

II.
Another shot is to reduce the number of needed dead masqs by having your opponent discard. Every expansion except Alchemy has a mandatory discard. Of those, minion and followers are the only ones that don't work as a simple replacement for goons. KC/KC/Ghost Ship/Masq leaves the other guy just as dead as goons. Followers comes with an estate so you will burn one fewer card until the estate pile runs out - then you are good to go. Minion requires that you get 4 cards out of their hand, this is most easily done with outpost or golem. This is what I think is the most versatile pin:
Minion -> TR -> TR -> outpost -> masq
Minion -> TR -> masq

You can also try to hand deplete with conditional hits - cut purse and B-crat at this point. B-crat is virtually unworkable; KC/KC/B-crat/WT/Masq works to pin the opponent down to two (or three) green cards (nobles, islands, estates, whatever), you can use the WT to trash inbound silver, and the masq kills three (two) other cards. Cut purse works similarly except that it targets coppers (and they start with 7), cards are discarded (so they don't get to say keep 3 provinces when there are only 15 points left on the board), and there isn't a flood of treasure coming in. Additionally, you can add coppers to the opponent's deck with either mountebank or noble brigand; eventually this forces the pin to hit. E.g. KC/KC/CP/NB/Masq will try to discard 3 coppers from the opponent's hand. If it hits 2 or 3 coppers, then the opponent begins next hand with 0 cards and his deck has 2 fewer "not copper" cards. NB steals treasure (which can be problematic for the pin) and floods him with coppers if he doesn't have any. Long story, short, eventually you will pin the opponent, but the game has good odds of ending first.


III. Fighting the pin.
The pin is weak against its own components. Masq can steal irreplaceable cards, discard attacks make it harder (though not impossible) to string together the combo (e.g. KC/KC/goons/masq is DoA if you play a goons every turn). The pin player can overbuild the pin to have spare cards to send over (e.g. KC/KC/Militia/Militia/Masq can lose a militia & still pin) or have live draw to get back up to the needed 4 cards (e.g. KC/KC/Margrave can draw a masq to play; KC/KC/village can draw a militia and masq & proceed to pin). Using a discard attack and masq after that makes it very hard for a pin player to maintain their deck for the pin. KC/KC/village/militia/masq will most likely go down to KC/KC/village and either has to pass the village (you live for another day) or pass the KC (which means you lose one card this time and they buy a village; village/village/KC/miltia/masq will have the same problem if it gets hit with discard & masq).

Durations allow you to play after having lost all your other cards (and getting to play a masq off a tac or haven is huge). Moat, lighthouse, and horse traders lets you keep some cards and play against attack pins (those using golems or outpost are unaffected).

Another shot is getting a game ending megaturn out before the pin hits. KC/KC/Bridge/Bridge/Bridge does this (though you need to be sure to either slow down the pin with attacks or have strong enablers for the KC/Bridge combo). Other options that might be viable on particular boards include mass HoP, KC/Bridge(Highway)/IW/Nobles, etc.

[popsofctown]

I play a masq and what do you pass me? Pass me a masq and you can't trash my deck. Pass a KC and you only trash 1 card, pass a minion and you only trash 3 leaving me with a 3 card hand and no income for you. Then I play another masq and what do you pass then?

EDIT: Depending on when I get my masq play and other luck, you can still make a mess of my deck. But I will get out of the pin and your deck will also be a mess. So as I said it works only as a desperation move, but I wouldn't try it when I'm ahead.

What about passing cantrips?  You can add as many cantrips as you want to a Masquerade pin deck, even Markets.  If you pass a Market and can't get it back, you can just replace it with 6$ from Militia or what have you.

[jomini]

Well for an outpost pin, you may just be out of luck as they can pass a cantrip and still hit the pin. For the other pins though you still need to be careful as discard -> masq is just hellish when your deck is that ultra-lean.

Say you have Kc/Kc/market/militia/Masq.

I play militia. What do you keep?
Well you most likely want the Kc/Market and something else.

Okay, now I play masq, what do you send over (particularly if I send over a copper or curse)?

You send over the market. Great.

You have Kc/Mi - you get 6 coin, I have 3 cards. That means no pin this turn and I have another shot to disrupt your pin. You also have a non-pin card (e.g. copper) that means you can't pin me next turn.

Or maybe you have Kc/Masq. Well you can play Kc -> masq and we can swap coppers or maybe you get lucky ... or you just play the masq to trash the copper. And we get back to starting conditions with you having one fewer market.

Now if you want to be clever, you buy multiple cantrips (e.g. market x2 or wishing well/pearl diver). You hope that you when you get hit with the discard -> masq you can keep two cantrips in hand, pass me one, Kc the other (to draw Kc, attack, masq) and then proceed to semi-pin (discard -> Kc -> masq means you pass one card and burn 2). But the more you have to overbuild the pin, the slower it is and the more you risk either me getting you pinned first or of me getting to game a winning position (e.g. mass buying out pearl divers, estates and masqs).

I'm not saying the pin is a bad move, it is just comes with a built in counter (excepting golem pins and outpost pins) and people don't think about that enough.